Happy Easter!

Today is Easter, and I really should be boiling eggs for Sasha to color after his nap...but instead I'm making a blog post! 

Yesterday, we decided to go to an Easter celebration on base. It was our first time going to something like this, and Sasha had a blast!

Sasha was totally thrilled to hang out with the Easter Bunny!

The highlight of the event was an Easter egg "hunt", which wasn't a hunt at all. They just threw a ton of eggs into an open field and then the kids all scrambled like crazy to get as many as they could! They had it divided up by age group - ages 0-4 were supposed to start at noon. We got there at about 11:55, and it was already over! So I just put Sasha in with the 5-6 year old group that did their "hunt" at 12:45. Worked out very well haha!

Sasha in front of the field full of eggs!

Kids started lining up along the starting line over 30 min before the "hunt" was to begin, so we went ahead and lined up, too. It was a long, windy wait. When they finally counted down the last 5 min, the kids exploded from the starting line and the whole thing was over in about 1 minute. It was pretty intense...and didn't really look like much fun, to be honest. 

Sasha is circled in red - this was taken right as they yelled "GO!"

Besides the "hunt", they also had bouncy houses (which Sasha loved), face painting, photos with the Easter Bunny (as you saw), and free kites!

Sasha getting a batman symbol on his face!

We stayed for about an hour and a half, then went off to run some errands. One of which was getting Sasha a hair cut!! We had to wait almost 2 hours (!!!) because the place was so busy. So I went off shopping, and Regan and Sasha waited at the barber. I came back JUST as he was climbing up into the chair. Pretty good timing, huh?

Sasha actually LOVES getting hair cuts!

As I said, today is Easter! I should probably be writing this post later tonight so that I can include pictures of Easter dinner and decorating eggs, but I can just make another post later (or you can look at the pictures on facebook haha). I will include this picture of handsome Sasha, all dressed for church, just after he found his little basket this morning! 

He was so excited!!

And that's it for now! Happy Easter!! 

Freiberg Temple Trip

This past weekend, we went with the youth from our ward on a 3 day trip to Freiberg, Germany to visit the Temple and the surrounding area! Regan is still the young men's president, so he was going no matter what, but Sasha and I thought we'd tag along, too. We had a car full of young men for the 5.5 hr drive - THAT was interesting haha!

this is a pretty good representation of the drive.

We drove to hostel at the Temple and checked in, then our whole group drove into Dresden (about 40 min from the Temple) and spent the evening touring the city! Dresden is really beautiful. The weather was a little dreary, but at least it didn't rain on us! 

Sasha and I in Dresden

The next morning, we got up much too early so that we could be on the road around 7 AM - our group went to a spot near Dresden where Thomas S. Monson dedicated East Germany in 1975! One of the other leaders gave a great fireside about the dedication, but I missed a lot of it because I had to chase Sasha down the road. It was a still a really cool experience and a beautiful place!

The Brants at the place of dedication!

After that, we took the kids back to the temple so they could do baptisms and a service project. The weather was SO BEAUTIFUL (at least for the first part of the day). I wish we would have taken our family picture at the temple then, but we took it the next day when it was overcast again. Oh well. At least I got some good pictures of Sasha with a blue sky!

Sasha LOVES to see the Temple!

That evening, our group wandered around downtown Freiberg, played some ultimate frisbee (to the great curiosity of passing Germans haha), and had some pretty good Döners for dinner! The next morning, we had to be out of the hostel by 7:30 AM, so once again I was up well before I wanted to be! We had breakfast, then packed up and hit the road! After about 2.5 hrs of driving, we reached Wartburg Castle - where Martin Luther translated the New Testament. The castle was huge and the tour was really fascinating! That was one of my favorite stops on the whole trip! 

The Brants and Wartburg Castle!

After that, we drove on to Frankfurt so that some people could get chipotle for (a very late) lunch. That was pretty much it for the trip! We all had a great time! I'm glad we got to visit the Freiberg Temple before we move back to the USA.

Ready For Some Summer Adventure!

Oh hi. I kind of...forgot about this blog again. I won't bother backtracking or anything. We've had a fun couple of months: went to Spain, visited an amusement park in Germany called Holiday Park, and took a Rhein River cruise. Other than that, it's been a pretty quiet summer so far. At least, quiet in comparison to years past. 

That will all change next week, though! We're going on our MONTH-LONG SUMMER EXTRAVAGANZAAAA!! I feel like the list of things I need to get done before we go is about 10x longer than it should be, but oh well. I'll get it done somehow =P I always do!

I just wanted to post something while I was thinking about it - hopefully this will become a regular thing again!! 

And now a random picture of Sasha walking down the street...

It's a Great Day!

Happy Thursday! 

Life around the Brant house has been pretty "ok" lately haha! Regan is back in the states right now for training, so it's been just Sasha and I for the last 1.5 weeks. It's hard not having Regan around to distract Sasha from me in the evenings, but we've been doing ok, I think. 

I've been doing VEDA (Vlog Every Day in April) on my personal youtube channel, so that's actually been taking up a lot of my time (probably the main reason I haven't been posting in here as much). 

Here's my channel, in case you don't know: http://www.youtube.com/user/CuteCoil

The sun has been rising well before 7 AM lately, so Sasha has been having a hard time staying in bed even though he's tired. The other morning I woke up to him standing next to my bed with wet pants. I thought he hadn't made it to the potty in time, but he kept trying to tell me he spilled something on himself. When I went downstairs, I found out what had spilled...

He's not QUITE ready to get his own breakfast...

He got the Rice Krispies, soy milk, cups, bowl, and spoon out but he just didn't have the strength to pour the milk, poor thing! He was SO CLOSE!! Instead half of the soy milk container ended up on him/the chair/the rug. That stuff's not cheap, either! Oh well! That's what I get for trying to sleep in past 6 AM. 

We've been hanging out with our good friends, Beth and Zoe, once or twice a week because Beth's husband has been out of town lately, too. A couple of weeks ago, Beth bought us a season pass to the Gartenschau in Kaiserslautern - it's basically a huge, awesome park. Lots of playgrounds, a huge sand pit, water play area, giant dinosaur statues, flower gardens...you get the idea. It's awesome!! We've been trying to go at LEAST once a week to get the most use out of our pass.

"Stop taking pictures of me! I WANT TO PLAY!!"

Sasha is happiest at the park!

The weather has been AMAZING this whole week, so we've been going to a lot of parks. Yesterday we decided to go find a tower south of Kaiserslautern. I should give some back story: When Regan and I first moved here, we didn't have a gps and we loved just driving around and exploring. We had a map of the area and it had castle ruins/towers/etc marked on it. So we would just drive around and try to find them all. There was this tower that we saw and we tried to find it, but we drove around forever and got really lost and never found it. So yesterday, the weather was nice, so I was like "SASHA!! LET'S DO THIS!!!!!!!!!" I thought I could find it on the gps and drive up to it. I was wrong. The gps took me to a dead end - actually, it was a private dirt road that people use for a bike/walking path. I decided we could just walk up to the tower, so I parked and that's what we did. It took an entire how of hiking up hill, but we got there! It was actually a ton of fun and a really beautiful hike. Sasha was a total trooper and just hiked right along with me. Sad story is, I didn't bring the digital camera. I brought two different film cameras....but I can't show you those pictures yet. Sorry. 

Sasha is still kind of having a hard time staying in bed. The other night, I walked into his room to check on him before I got into bed, and this is what I found. He was completely passed out...

Is that really better than sleeping on your bed?

Last night I found him asleep in his closet with the doors shut. I have no idea. He just seems to really hate sleeping in his bed! At least he's sleeping, I guess. 

And that wraps up what's been going on lately! 

Easter and the Temple!

Two weeks ago, for my Harvey Bloodline video, I showed Sasha and I making these lovely paper plate bunny face things. Here's a better picture of them than what you probably saw in the video:

Sasha's is a bit abstract, I think.

We had a great Easter. A bunch of Regan's co-workers got together last Sunday evening for a 'brunch-for-dinner' potluck event! I brought peanut butter sticky buns (which were absolute heaven! SO GOOD!!!), bacon, and I made eggs Benedict there (since that's not really a 'make ahead' type of meal). There was SO MUCH food. I don't think I've been that full for a long time. Very uncomfortable...but very delicious. And seriously, those peanut butter sticky buns were just...amazing. SO amazing. I ate so many!

This past week was rather uneventful, besides the usual story time and a couple of play dates. We were able to go to the Frankfurt temple this weekend, though, which was a lot of fun. We drove up Friday and stayed in the lodging on the temple grounds. We checked in and then went out for some Thai/Chinese/Japanese/Asian food (they had pretty much every country in Asia on the sign, so I don't know what they really identified as) and it was SO good. I had a massive pile of fried glass noodles with chicken. mmmmm my fave. It was really cheap, too! After that, I went to the 7 PM session at the  temple. Regan got up the next morning and went to the 9 AM session. His was in English, too! Lucky duck! I haven't gone through a session without headphones since my brother's wedding over a year ago! The headphones are now a normal part of my temple clothing haha. 

This weekend is also General Conference, but being in Germany, the times are all weird. The Saturday morning session comes on at 6 PM, for example. Regan went to the Priesthood session this morning at 11, and then we watched the Saturday morning session. So far that's all I've seen. BOO!!! But with the weird times, it's just hard to watch them as they air live! I'll catch up during the week, though, so it's ok. That's how we usually do it anyway. 

Well, it's after 11 and I am trying to go to bed earlier. 10:30 was my goal...but this is a start! At least it's not midnight yet.

Peanut Butter, Marshmallow, and Grits

Sasha seems to be getting up earlier and earlier every morning and it's driving me nuts! The other day, he apparently got up before my alarm. When I got up, I heard him quietly bumping around in his room. When I opened the door, I found him sitting at his table, calm as can be, with open jars of peanut butter and marshmallow fluff. He was eating out of one with his left hand, and the other with his right. His clothes were completely covered in marshmallow, as was his face and the table. I wanted to be mad, but it was honestly too funny! I wish I would have taken a picture, but I was afraid to leave him alone to go get the camera. Oh well!

After he had a quick shower, we came down for breakfast. Regan bought a box of instant, flavored grits because it was on sale for 1$ or something. I hate grits, so I had no intention of eating it. Sasha usually enjoys hot breakfast cereal, so I thought he could give it a try. I made him the butter flavor because I thought it would be closest to what he was used to. Well, he hated it. He took one bite and gagged! He choked down a few more bites, but obviously hated it. I made him finish the whole bowl, though. I called it his punishment for eating peanut butter and marshmallow in the wee hours of the morning without permission. That seemed fair, right? Or maybe I was just being mean? In any case, no more grits will be eaten in this house.

Bad Parent Awards

I feel like I reached a milestone of parenthood today: I lost my child in a store!! To be fair, though, it was totally his fault.

Here's the story: Today Sasha and I were able to meet Regan at the KMCC (mall) on base for lunch. After Regan went back to work, Sasha and I went to pick up a few things for our home-preschool adventures (which I may or may not discuss here, depending on how it goes haha). As we were walking into the store, Sasha decided to run ahead of me, as he often does. No big deal...except that he didn't stop. I didn't chase him because 1) he usually stops and waits for me when he thinks I can't see him anymore and 2) I assumed he had run to the cosmetics because we always go there first to look at nail polish and the last I could see of him before he disappeared, he was about 5 feet away from there. But then of course he wasn't there, or anywhere around there. I spent about 5 minutes looking around in clothing racks thinking he was hiding from me before I got nervous enough to hit an "assistance" button and get some help. After another 5 minutes of waiting with no sign of anyone coming, I finally walked up to a register and told the cashier that my kid had run off. She was kind enough to inform me that a child had been found and she called to double check that he matched the description I gave. Sure enough, it was Sasha. He had SOMEHOW managed to get himself to the complete opposite side of the store without me spotting him.

Anyway, I went and picked him up and spent the rest of the shopping trip gripping his hand tightly and calling for him loudly whenever he wasn't within 2 feet of me. When we went to check out, the cashier looked at Sasha and said "I told you we could find her" which led me to realize that she must have been the one who found him or something. I made some joke about it and then tried not to talk about it anymore! SO EMBARRASSING!

So yeah, bad mom award pinned to my jacket now. Go me!